Perilous Seas (21 page)

She
ducked her head for one last rinse, then started back to the shore, squeezing
water from her hair. She rubbed wetness off her skin with her hands, wishing
she had some of those seductively soft towels from the palace in Arakkaran. She
reluctantly concluded that she would have to dress in damp clothes ...

Mules
did not whinny!

Then
she heard Kade scream.

In
the muddle of memories that Inos retained of the ensuing events, it always
seemed as if the sun went down at that exact same instant-as if she left the
water in daylight, leaped across the sand and up the bank with one jump, and
landed on the turf in dusk. Deep shadows of the high forest crown filled the
meadow as she raced across it, her bow in one hand, three arrows and a wet
shift in the other, pursued by every terror her mind could conjure. Twigs and
small pebbles dug at her bare feet, and thorny flower stems under the long
grass scraped her shins. She stumbled over tussocks and hidden ridges. Her damp
skin was cool, to match the icy horror inside her, and her hair was a wet rag
flopping on her back.

Kade!
Oh, Kade!

The
mules had not screamed as they would have done for lions. The mules were still
there, eating contentedly. Inos could see them, vague shapes in the gathering
dusk. The whinnynoises had been ponies, or horses.

Why
would Kade have screamed just once?

And
a sudden flash of clarity-what did Inos think she was doing racing across the
meadow in the nude? Why, oh, why, did she never stop to think? She should have
taken the three seconds necessary to pull on a robe, instead of just grabbing up
a sodden scrap of underwear that wasn’t going to do very much good if the
danger was human. Specifically, man-type human. That insight struck her about
halfway from the river to the little windbreak; she stumbled, recovered,
decided she could not desert Kade, and kept on running, heart pounding now from
fear and exertion both.

Smoke
still drifted from the tangled screen of branches Azak had woven between the
saplings. Nothing looked disturbed. Kade was in there, or behind there. With
what? With whom?

A
mule brayed, and they all raised their heads.

Eight
of them! Four mules and four horses. Saddled horses. Full-size horses, dim in
the twilight. Well-trained horses, with their reins left dangling, cropping
grass. Maybe a minute had passed since Kade screamed, and then a man stepped
out of the shelter.

Inos
dug in her toes, windmilled her arms once, and stopped dead, gasping for breath
and simultaneously tucking the arrows under her arm and trying to arrange her
skimpy covering like a curtain in front of herself with her freehand. It wasn’t
very satisfactory.

He
had seen her. He held out his hands in welcome and called something. She made
out not a single word, but his meaning was clear enough: Here she comes. Three
other men emerged at his side, indistinct in the gloom. She could see few
details, but they were men, young men, and she had no clothes on.

For
a moment Inos just gaped in horror and disbelief-Azak had been so certain there
were no traces of people. And the four strangers likewise stood and gazed at
her. These were no primitive savages; they were decked out in long pants and
some sort of neat shirts or tunics, all of the same dark-green shade. Each man
wore a jaunty forester’s cap with a feather in it and they carried
longbows, the longest bows she had ever seen.

Then
the first one made a beckoning motion and shouted to her, inviting. Come all
the way.

Inos’s
feet began backing up of their own accord. To meet four strange men in a forest
was bad enough, but to do so with no clothes on was the stuff of nightmares.

There
was no way she could even pull on her stupid slip without laying down her
weapons.

The
strangers conferred briefly. One gestured at the horses, and the others jeered
at him. The leader said something and they laughed. They laid down their bows,
slid the quivers from their shoulders, and dropped those also.

Again
the leader called to her, and she made out enough to know he was telling her to
disarm, also. She had three arrows, only three. Plus one bow and a white flag.

“Who
are you?” she shouted. “What do you want?” She eased back a
few more steps-nearer the river and the forest beyond, nearer her heap of
clothes. Kade! What had they done to Kade?

What?
the leader shouted. Or so she assumed-he cupped an ear.

“What
do you want?” she cried again, ashamed of her shrillness.

One
of the others said something, and they all laughed again. The leader shouted,
pointing: You!

Then
one of the others made a joke, and they all laughed, and quickly spread out in
a straight line. The leader glanced along the line, then called out two or
three words. Then two more ...

On
your marks ... Get set ...

They
were going to run her down on foot. She would be first prize in the men’s
cross-country sprint.

And
perhaps all the other prizes, too.

If
she tried to escape from the loop of the river, the men would run her down
easily. She could not swim. Crocodiles were a trivial evil now-she whirled
around and took to her heels. Another obvious shout: Go!

And
a glance over her shoulder confirmed that word. The race was on.

Three
arrows, four men, fading light ... she would not dare shoot until they were at
point-blank range, and if they charged her together, she would not have time to
draw her bow a second time. Could she bring herself to shoot an arrow into a human
being? Even to try might be a stupidity, for if she felled some or wounded
some, then how would the others retaliate?

She
ran as she had never run, and the river was horribly far off. Beyond it lay
deep forest where she could hide if she could ever reach it alive. Harsh
breathing and pounding heart and tangles of grass grabbing at her legs to trip
her ... Somewhere on the run her useless slip caught on a bush and was lost.

She
would never make it. She had provoked enough chases in her life to know that
female legs were no match for men’s when it came to running. Even when
she had been taller than Rap and Lin she had never been able to outrun them.

Then
a chorus of mule noise in the distance, and a thump of hooves-Azak! With a cry
of relief, Inos stopped and spun around. The men were dangerously near already,
closing in on her like talons, but they had stopped and turned also, to see who
came. And they had left their bows at the shelter! Had she had any breath left,
Inos would have cheered-Azak would ride them down and fill them full of arrows
and chop their heads off in the first half minute.

The
mule came into view, coming from the upstream side, the way Azak had gone.

A
largish mule, riderless.

Skittering
and jumpy, it raced around in terror and indecision, and then headed for the
others. It was Azak’s mule. No Azak. The implications of that were not
thinkable.

The
four men laughed and jabbered and lost interest in the new arrival. They turned
to face their quarry again. They were so spread out that it was hard to keep
all four in view.

The
leader called out to her and she thought she picked out some of the words: lady
... friends ... be friends ... He repeated the beckoning gesture he had used
before. Inos shook her head and stepped back, speechless with terror and lack
of breath.

Blood
roared in her head. Terror ...

The
man laughed. He pointed an arm at the mules, then raised a hand high to
indicate height. He pulled an imaginary bow, swung his arm around, jabbing a
thumb in his chest. He made falling gestures. The other three gasped out fits
of laughter at this dumbshow.

Azak
bushwacked? Shot down from cover? So his panicdriven mount would have fled and
then eventually circled back to join its companions.

Azak
shot ... What had they done to Kade? Azak ... Kade ...

Now
Inos.

She
dropped two arrows and heaved on her bow to string itfaster than she had ever
done that-and she had the third arrow notched at once, pointing at the leader.
In this twilight, with her heart bouncing all around her chest, she was probably
not capable of hitting a rain barrel from the inside.

The
men on the ends were edging around, moving to encircle her. Again the leader
called out in his singsong dialect, unfamiliar and yet teasingly close to being
intelligible: hurt? ... no, he meant not hurt. . . promise, promise, promise
... She would trust his promise like a viper’s kiss. The meanings came
more in gesture and inflection than words, but the mockery and gloating came
more clearly still.

“Go
back!” she shouted, drawing the bow. “Call off your men. I’m
not bluffing!”

The
leader cowered in pretended fear and backed a couple of steps. But the others
... Evil take it! She couldn’t watch all three and aim an arrow at the
same time.

Three?
She whirled, and the fourth was not a dozen paces off, between her and the
river. As her bow turned on him, he stopped and threw up his hands in mock
surrender. He was taller than the others, fresh-faced, not very old. He spoke,
and again the main words came through: . . . mercy ... have mercy ... lady ...
mercy ...

“Stand
aside!” Inos shouted, and moved to edge past him. He stepped to block
her. She glanced around at the others. They were closer. The tall one shouted
to attract her attention; then the others did. Now they were openly playing a
child’s gamewhenever she was looking, they stood still; when she wasn’t,
they moved.

That
river was horribly wide and swift, but it could contain no monsters worse than
these. She dashed for the widest gap. The tall youngster dived for her. She
struck with her bow, and he grabbed it. She let go, staggered, and was taken
from behind by two arms like barrel hoops. She kicked screamed twisted butted
...

Her
captor cursed in her ear and squeezed until her ribs creaked. She cried out
with her last puff of breath, going limp, as dark spots danced before her eyes.
He eased the strain a little. The three other men were clustered around,
inspecting the spoils, all winded, panting and grinning.

They
were not tall, but then Inos had become accustomed to djinns. Imp height,
then-middle size for a man, but still taller than she. Their faces and arms
were a middle shade of brown, too, but they were not imps. Their hair was
paler, curly not straight; they had too much shoulder and not enough hip ...
and their eyes were set at a curious slant, like an elf’s. Pointed ears.
Pixies. Living pixies! Young men out for devilment, two of them little more
than boys.

But
old enough. Four of them. God of Mercy!

They
were panting too much for so short a run. They kept smiling, chuckling,
breathless with excitement. They spoke words that meant nice girl and much
happiness. That meant horrible things.

They
wore sleeveless shirts and long pants and boots-all of them well-made garments,
embroidered, fitted. All the same olive green. Clothes and wearers smelled of
woodsmoke, and horse, and male sweat.

The
leader reached out to stroke her cheek and she tried to bite his hand. He
laughed and fondled her breast instead. “Brute!” she shouted with
all the wind she could find. “Animal! Evil!” She kicked, and he
caught her leg and hung on to it, so she reeled on the other foot, held up only
by the man behind her, who chuckled in her ear.

The
leader said something and stroked her thigh. Her skin came up in gooseflesh and
he laughed at that.

“Don’t
understand! Don’t know what you say. Monster! Four against one? You’re
brutes! Cowards! Spawn of Evil!”

Still
holding her ankle in one hand and fondling with the other, the leader spoke,
tried again, and finally found a word she knew and reacted to: “Outsider!”

He
glanced at the others, then at her again, and he discarded his smile. “Outsider?”
he repeated in his strange accent. He turned his head and spat on the grass. “Outsider!”

It
made sense. Outsiders-intruders. Nonpixies were fair game. Shoot down the men,
rape the women. Then what? And what had they done to Kade? Whole legions could
vanish in Thume.

“No!”
She shook her head wildly and tried to struggle again. The same thing happened
as before-her captor crushed her into helplessness. She whimpered, trying to
wrestle her leg free, trying to butt, but she had slid down until her head was
against her chest and butting did no good. Again she slumped into quiescence,
but her heart was going mad inside her.

One
of the others spoke sharply, impatiently.

The
leader snapped, telling him to be quiet, but he dropped her ankle and began
unlacing his shirt. She was half sitting now, unable to straighten her legs,
and gradually sliding lower in her captor’s arms.

The
leader threw down his shirt, grinning at her. By some trick of the light, she
could see the sweat glint on his chest with every harsh breath. He hooked his
right heel under his left boot and tugged out his right foot.

“You
bunch of animals!” she sneered, not shouting now. “Beasts! Filth!
What sort of man treats-”

Again
a sound of hooves, many hooves, shrills of alarm from the horses.

The
men looked around, and Inos twisted her head to see. The shirtless man rammed
his foot back in his boot and took to his heels, bellowing orders. The other
two followed at once, leaving only the one holding Inos. He turned to watch,
giving her a better view also.

The
three men were running as if chased by lions, running for their horses. Horses
and mules were in wild panic and uproar. In their midst, one horse plunged and
leaped as its rider scrolled the dark with lines of fire, waving a flaming
branch.